Migration to Hosted Exchange server

My company is planning to migrate from hosting their own SBS 2003 to an
Exchange host provider. One of the techs suggested a method to minimize down
time that I wanted to get another opinion on.

They want to try having the local users create a final, local cached copy
(w/ Outlook 2k3) of their mailbox, then configure the Outlook client to
connect to the hosted exchange server. With this in mind the local cached
copy of the mailbox will then sync with the hosted exchange server, since the
hosted exchange server (dedicated server at the host's site) will have the
same server name, AD name, and user logon credentials.

I wasn't too crazy about this idea. I really thought the most effective way
though time consuming would be to just export all mailboxes to pst files then
import into the newly created mailbox.

Just looking for other opinions.

Chad
Thu May 08 19:55:32 CDT 2008

Somebody might correct me here, but I don't think you can sync an OST
(cached copy) to a new server, so I don't think your techs option would
work. Interorg Exchange migrations are tricky and there are lot of things
that you need to account for, such as adding X500 addresses to the new
mailboxes so users can reply to old messages. Your option of exporting to
PST is probably be best, but keep in mind that you'll lose Rules, Delegates,
Mapi Permissions, etc. The migwiz tool, that comes with Exchange, is the
best built in tool to help you accomplish this type of migration. Hope that
helps.

--
Chad Mosman
M3 Postmasters
m3postmasters@nospam.m3tg.com
www.m3postmasters.com

"Lincit" <Lincit@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:A3BC1788-D9A2-42B6-A128-B6FC93F120BB@microsoft.com...
> My company is planning to migrate from hosting their own SBS 2003 to an
> Exchange host provider. One of the techs suggested a method to minimize
> down
> time that I wanted to get another opinion on.
>
> They want to try having the local users create a final, local cached copy
> (w/ Outlook 2k3) of their mailbox, then configure the Outlook client to
> connect to the hosted exchange server. With this in mind the local cached
> copy of the mailbox will then sync with the hosted exchange server, since
> the
> hosted exchange server (dedicated server at the host's site) will have the
> same server name, AD name, and user logon credentials.
>
> I wasn't too crazy about this idea. I really thought the most effective
> way
> though time consuming would be to just export all mailboxes to pst files
> then
> import into the newly created mailbox.
>
> Just looking for other opinions.

Oliver
Fri May 09 06:00:19 CDT 2008

You can't.

Either give a copy of all users PST files to the Hosted Exchange provider so
they can Exmerge them in, or just get your users to import their PSTS (you
can get an OST to PST tool) themselves.

I don't think they will be able to use migwiz, as they are migrating to a
ASP provider. The Hoster will have to add X500 addresses to all their
accounts, and should have already asked you for a dump of all users
LegacyExchangeDNs.

The Hoster should know this, may I ask who it is?

Oliver


> Somebody might correct me here, but I don't think you can sync an OST
> (cached copy) to a new server, so I don't think your techs option would
> work. Interorg Exchange migrations are tricky and there are lot of things
> that you need to account for, such as adding X500 addresses to the new
> mailboxes so users can reply to old messages. Your option of exporting to
> PST is probably be best, but keep in mind that you'll lose Rules,
> Delegates, Mapi Permissions, etc. The migwiz tool, that comes with
> Exchange, is the best built in tool to help you accomplish this type of
> migration. Hope that helps.

Andy
Fri May 09 08:10:16 CDT 2008

On Thu, 8 May 2008 20:55:32 -0400, "Chad Mosman [M3 Postmasters]"
<m3postmasters@m3tg.com> wrote:

>Somebody might correct me here, but I don't think you can sync an OST
>(cached copy) to a new server

Well, you can, but it requires breaking the unique mailbox key which
is stored in the mailbox and in the registry. :P

Lincit
Fri May 09 09:45:03 CDT 2008

That's what I thought, the techs at the Host provider are looking into it and
are to get back to us. But even if they build a server with the same server
name, AD name, Exchange config, I didn't see this to be a working solution.
Wouldn't that be some sort of security breach if I had access to someone's
login credentials ? (if I can get that then obviously I should be able to get
the Exchange info). And then there's the .ost issue.

But I just wanted to get other opinions on this. It seems like they are
making a simply task (only about 20 mailboxs, only 6 are heavy email users)
complicated.

"Andy David {MVP}" wrote:

> On Thu, 8 May 2008 20:55:32 -0400, "Chad Mosman [M3 Postmasters]"
> <m3postmasters@m3tg.com> wrote:
>
> >Somebody might correct me here, but I don't think you can sync an OST
> >(cached copy) to a new server
>
> Well, you can, but it requires breaking the unique mailbox key which
> is stored in the mailbox and in the registry. :P
>
>
>
>
>
>